Sir Alexander Anstruther (10 September 1769 – 16 July 1819) was a Scottish judge in India during the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...

administration of the

Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

and Bombay Presidencies.

Life

Anstruther was the second son of

Sir Robert Anstruther, 3rd Baronet Sir Robert Anstruther, 3rd Baronet of Balcaskie, Fife ( April 1733 – 2 August 1818) was a Scottish advocate and landowner. He was the eldest son of the advocate Sir Philip Anstruther, 2nd Baronet of Balcaskie, whom he succeeded in 1763. He was ...

, of

Balcaskie Balcaskie is a 17th-century country house in Fife, Scotland. It lies around 2 km north of St Monans, and is notable chiefly as the home and early work of architect Sir William Bruce. Robert Lorimer, an admirer of Bruce, called the house ...

Fife Fife (, ; gd, Fìobha, ; sco, Fife) is a council area, historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries with Perth and Kinross (i ...

. He was called to the bar at

Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. (The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn.) Lincoln ...

, and published ' Reports of Cases argued and determined in the Court of Exchequer, from Easter Term 32 George III to Trinity Term 37 George III, both inclusive,' which were published in three volumes in 1796 and 1797, and were reprinted for a second edition in 1817. Anstruther went out to India in 1798, and was appointed

Advocate-General of Madras The Advocate-General of Madras was charged with advising the Government of the British administered Madras Presidency on legal matters. The Presidency existed from 1652 to 1950. Prior to 1858, when it was administered by the East India Company, t ...

in 1803. In March 1812 he succeeded Sir John Henry Newbolt as Recorder of Bombay, and was knighted. While on his voyage out to India he wrote a small work on ''Light, Heat, and Electricity''. Alexander married Sarah Prendergast, the widow of Captain William Selby of the Bombay Marine, on 14 March 1803 in Surat. They had nine children. Alexander died in Mauritius in 1819 leaving Sarah with her seven surviving children. Sarah returned to Scotland and died at Airth Castle in 1865.Registry of Marriages at Surat Castle / British India Office Ecclesiastical Returns He died at

Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label=Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It incl ...

in 1819.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Anstruther, Alexander 1769 births 1819 deaths People from Fife 19th-century Scottish judges British people in colonial India British India judges Younger sons of baronets 18th-century Scottish lawyers Advocates General for Tamil Nadu Members of Lincoln's Inn Alexander, Judge